In this article I examine the non-verbal dialogues between Siberian hunters and their prey in order to explore how empathetic relationships affect the integrity of the dialogical self. Based on the ethnographic accounts of the anthropologist Rane Willerslev (2002, 2004a, 2004b, 2007) I show how the hunter maintains his human identity while he imitates the…

14th EASA Biennial Conference Anthropological legacies and human futures Department of Human Science for Education ‚Riccardo Massa‘ and Department of Sociology and Social Research at University of Milano-Bicocca 20-23 July, 2016 Panel: The return of the wild: fears – hopes – strategies. ethnographic encounters in wildlife management in Europe The panel presents research into the…

Even though the Tuva eagerly pointed out and stressed a lot of differences between themselves and wolves, I also discovered a sense of ’shared fate‘ regarding wolves. They recognize that wolves‘ seasonal activities, problems and needs are similar to their own and all other animals‘ in the region. Due to the harsh climatic circumstances, all…

Most Tuva I met drew a clear line between wolves and human beings. Wolves are wild (mong. zerleg), they can do whatever they want and they live in the mountains far away from where humans live. The ‚otherness‘ which is expressed in these comments points to the wolf as the perhaps most typical representative of…

After a consultation with the spirits of a local ovoo (sacred place), a shamaness told Cheme, one of Galtai’s brothers who accompanied us, to get a wolf’s knee joint which he should bind to his car keys. Cheme had had a serious accident some months before I arrived and he was nervous about driving. With…

Wolves as prey Wolves are regarded as special due to their double role of being both predator and prey. So while one part of the wolves‘ life is governed by their own hunting activities, the other part is governed by the continuous need to hide from humans. Accordingly, wolves are said to hide and sleep…

Once, there was an old rich man who had a son and owned 1,000 horses. One day, they wanted to move on to other pastures. When the man led his horses to a nearby river he came across a dshelbege (a female ‚evil spirit‘). She was going to kill him unless he gave her either…

When I visited a community of Tuva pastoralists near Dsaamar, about 150 kilometres north-west of the Mongolian capital Ulaan Baator, wolves had killed a lamb the night before. Everybody was still nervous and feared further attacks. Therefore, several men had placed empty oil barrels around the community land which were meant to resemble humans on…